General Road and Highway Discussion

[ijmorlan]

Do they park there regularly? For how long?

I’m just curious because while I don’t like it, and we should have better approaches, I understand why trucks park for a few minutes in odd places. Just the other day I saw a truck parked in the bike trail on Erb at King; they were taking drywall into the former Hatashita Jewellers building on the corner. I didn’t like that, but I’m not sure what they should be doing instead. Although I do think that whatever they do, it should be permitted, by which I mean not “allowed” but rather “not done until they obtain a permit from the City”.

On the other hand, if that property just regularly parks their truck on the sidewalk all the time, it should be towed on site from now on.

Counterpoint: I don't understand parking in the bike lane and they should have been using/blocking 1/3 vehicular lanes with their vehicle. Just because the bicycle traffic is less and not going to hit and damage their truck doesn't mean its optional for them to block any more than the roadway.

That is a good point. And I would actually suggest that the bike lanes should have bollards making entry by full-size vehicles impossible, which makes the question of what to do in unusual circumstances moot. But factual correction: it would be one of 2 vehicular lanes at that point, and right at the intersection for maximum disruption to traffic flow.

Of course I’m one who wonders why we can’t have arrangements where they have to book a parking space for construction purposes, or restrict their deliveries to off hours; blocking one of 2 vehicular lanes during rush hour really would jam things up, but doing it at another time of day wouldn’t be much of a problem at all.

But regardless of how my example should have been handled, it seems clear that in this Cambridge case the truck simply has no need to be on the sidewalk even briefly.